Tag Archives: design

Women, WordPress, & the Web

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This morning, Sarah Parmenter, a talented female web designer and frequent conference speaker, spoke up about the disgusting, abusive and degrading experiences she’s had as a female speaker. These kinds of experiences are not uncommon for women in tech. Women are underrepresented at conferences, and often when they are represented, they are sexually harassed, verbally abused, or are just plain talked down to. Attempts to discuss the lack of diversity and problem women face in tech conferences have even been met with disrespect and ridicule. (Aral Balkan does a good job of summing up that entire debacle.) It’s no wonder there aren’t as many women itching to speak at conferences:

There’s many questions around why there aren’t more females speaking in this industry. I can tell you why,they are scared. Everytime I jump on stage, I get comments, either about the way I look, or the fact that I’m the female, the token, the one they have to sit through in order for the males to come back on again. One conference, I even had a guy tweet something derogatory about me not 30 seconds into my talk, only for me to bring up the point he had berated me for not bringing up, not a minute later – which caused him to have to apologise to my face after public backlash. I’ve had one guy come up to me in a bar and say (after explaining he didn’t like my talk)… “no offence, I just don’t relate to girls speaking about the industry at all, I learn better from guys”. Sarah Parmenter

I want to talk a little bit about my experiences, specifically in the WordPress community. To start, though, here’s a bit about me. I’ve been taught from a young age that women are awesome. Though my mother might not have been the best parent as I was growing up, she is and always has been an incredibly strong woman who taught me, quite frankly, not to take shit from anyone. It’s something I internalized early. I spent thirteen long years as an active girl scout, being encouraged that whole time to be a strong leader and activist. This encouragement extended into my college years at Smith. Smithies are known for raising a raucous, and boy, do we like to give “the man” hell. Needless to say, I’ve never really been intimidated by “male spaces”.

This leads me to WordPress. One of the things that immediately attracted me to WordPress was the number of visible women. I went to my first WordCamp (NY ’10) along with some coworkers. At that point I had probably spent about a year working on and off with WordPress, and had enjoyed it, but I wasn’t really in love with it like I am now. WordCamp NYC changed that. Part of it was the excitement, camaraderie and learning that comes along with any tech conference, but a bit part of it was who specifically was there. I was a little in awe of Jen Mylo, Automattic employee and the UX/UI lead for WordPress for several years. I still remember Sara Cannon’s session, Beyond the System Font. Women were involved with organizing the conference, women were volunteering, and women were speaking. It was my kind of place.

I think one of the unusual(ly awesome) things about the WordPress community, in contrast to the overall tech community, is just how easy it is to find amazingly talented women to look up to. They’re everywhere: From designers like Jen Mylo, Sara Cannon and Chelsea Otakan, to Helen Hou-Sandi, rockstar core contributor, developer, and current UI team lead, to Siobhan McKeown, an amazing web writer now an editor at Smashing Magazine, to Lisa Sabin-Wilson, author, really dynamic and personable speaker, and now partner at WebDevStudios. I could go on listing people. The number of women working with, writing about, and speaking on WordPress is huge. WordPress really helped my find a place in the overall tech community. It really inspired me to start speaking, which is something I want to continue to do as I grow as a designer and a community member.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying the community is a bubble immune to discrimination, harassment, or all the other nasty things that plague the tech industry. I’m sure we have a lot of things we’re doing wrong. But my experiences within the WordPress community have helped positively shape me as a designer and as a woman, and for that I am thankful.

How Donald Norman predicted the iPhone

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Would you like a pocket-size device that reminded you of each appointment and daily event? I would. I am waiting for the day when portable computers become small enough that I can keep one with me at all times. I will definitely put all my burdens upon it. It has to be small. It has to be convenient to use. And it has to be relatively powerful, at least by today’s standards. It has to have a full, standard typewriter keyboard and a reasonably large display. It needs good graphics, because that makes a tremendous difference in usability, and a lot of memory—a huge amount, actually. And it should be easy to hook up to the telephone  I need to connect it to my home and laboratory computers. Of course, it should be relatively inexpensive.

- Donald Norman, The Design of Everyday Things

A review of the new Myspace

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If you’re anything like me, you haven’t touched your Myspace account in years. A social networking pioneer, Myspace’s fame waned with the rise of Facebook, which did social bigger, better, and more efficiently. Myspace was high school; Facebook was college.

That’s why I was surprised and delighted to hear about the “new” Myspace. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the promotional video they put out a few months ago, check it out:

It looked sexy, and boy was I intrigued. I signed up for the beta release and, low and behold, found an invite in my inbox earlier this week.

Setting up my personal profile was a little confusing. Navigation is context-specific, so I had to click around a little before finding the option. (I’m also pretty sure that edit icon wasn’t there when I was trying to set up my profile, but I could be wrong) I’ve since gotten used to the context-specific navigation, but it was definitely a bit of a challenge the first day. I also had some trouble grasping the concept of “connections”, which is essentially Myspace’s “like.” You can connect with anything: music, mixes, images, videos, people, artists, etc. I still think it’s a little weird that you can “connect” with things that aren’t people, but at least it’s a consistent experience across the site.

Screenshot of the new Myspace profile

So far my absolute favorite feature has been Myspace’s new search. On any page, if you want to search, all you have to do is start typing. An overlay with your search pops up as you type. It organizes your results into relevant categories. It’s clean, simple, and really easy. Don’t actually want to search? Just press esc and you’re back to where you were.

Screenshot of Myspace's new search functionality

I’m going to let you guys in on a little secret: I love making playlists. Love it. I’ve spent hours in Winamp and iTunes making the perfect playlists for every occasion. Myspace’s process for creating “mixes” is one of the most seamless and enjoyable experiences I’ve had to date. I can search for music without leaving my mix page, unlike iTunes, where it’s a constant game of back-and-forth between playlist and library. If you’re listening to a genre radio or someone else’s mix, you can also quickly and easily add those songs to your mix from any page on the site. Your mixes get published to your activity feed so you can instantly share them with your friends.

Unfortunately, I’ve run into a few frustrating spots with making mixes — the drag-and-drop reordering is a bit jagged. I’ve had trouble dragging songs from bottom to top, or vice-versa. Additionally, there’s no way to preview songs before adding them to your mix, so I’ve found a few available songs that are really bad quality. Lastly, the selection right now isn’t as awesome as I’d like it to be — a lot of songs I’ve found and enjoyed through services like Hype Machine and Turntable.fm are unavailable, and there’s no way to add your own music. Even still, Myspace’s mixes are definitely a step in the right direction.

Myspace's new playlist feature

Right now, there aren’t a lot of people using the new Myspace. Despite that, I’ve found myself coming back every day. This isn’t something I can say about Google+, which has all but been abandoned. Why is the new Myspace bringing me back when Google+ failed to? It’s actually quite simple – it doesn’t matter that no one’s using it yet. My enjoyment isn’t contingent on social interactions, but personal enjoyment of music. It’s everything I was hoping Spotify would be. Searching for music is fast and easy. Making playlists is fun, while on Spotify making a playlist is tedious, even agonizing. I can listen to albums or easily find mixes other people have made. The new Myspace isn’t trying to be the new Facebook, unlike Google+. It’s trying to be the new Myspace.

Will it continue to keep my attention? Who knows. As of right now, however, I’d give the new Myspace a thumbs up.

Want an invite? I’ve got one up for grabs! Tweet me your email @melchoyce.

Where design intersects with magic

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There are many ways of seeing. Each has an element of truth, but none is the whole truth. If you limit yourselves to one way of seeing, one truth, you will limit your power. …You must be flexible. You must be willing to learn from different sources. And you must always remember that the truths you see are incomplete.

~ The Thirteenth Child, Patricia Wrede

Preview of 3 in-progress WordPress restaurant themes

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For the past couple of months, I’ve been working on a series of restaurant style WordPress themes. I’m planning on releasing them for free in the next couple of months. Here’s a quick preview of what’s to come: Diner Menu     Diner Menu is a one-page responsive theme. It should be released within the next [...]

You Are Responsible for the Work You Put Into the World

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Recently, I finished re-reading Design is a Job by Mike Monteiro. It’s a handbook for designers. Even though it was my second time through, I still found it just as humorous, insightful, and groundbreaking as the first time. Topics range from working with everyone from clients to coworkers, receiving payments, delivering designs, and managing feedback. It’s a treasure trove of useful information for designers of all skill levels.

While reading, I found that one concept really kept resonating with me: you are responsible for the work you put out into the world.

During my career, I’ve put out a lot of work I wasn’t happy with, and a lot of work I wasn’t proud of. Sometimes it was because we ran out of time (I’ve had to pull together sites with under 10 hours of design budget for the whole project. Note for people making budgets: Never do this. Ever.). Sometimes it was because the client wanted it a certain way, and the client was allowed to make the final decision (I rallied against this. Every time. And every time, I lost that battle.) Sometimes, honestly, it was because I was lazy. Sometimes, I would think, “it’s okay that this work is subpar, because I’ve tried to stick up for my design before, tried to fight for the integrity of my work, and I failed. Maybe next time I’ll try harder. Maybe next time I won’t give up.”

But during that time, I didn’t. Even if I did try harder, I didn’t win. Ultimately, the client was always allowed to override design decisions. It was infuriating. It was degrading. And it should never have happened.

A while ago, I was the designer on a project that went downhill very quickly for a number of reasons. One of the biggest reasons, though, was our inability to control client feedback and expectations. While I’m not sure the project would have ever gone smoothly, it could have gone a hell of a lot better. The client was allowed to make a lot of design decisions. He would even create elaborate videos about his feedback where he would demonstrate the design changes he wanted. He would change our mockups and send them back to us. By the end of the project, I was a glorified pixel pusher. I objected throughout the whole process, and when I finally said I that I could not in good conscious continue to work on this project, I was told that I needed to get over it, and that I needed to finish the project so no one else had to pick up my slack. I needed to make everyone’s life easier and just make the changes the client demanded.

So I caved. I did it, but I bitterly regretted it. I still regret it. It was the wrong decision. I should have said no. I hated the final product. And one of the worst things? In the end, the client never even used the site. It got launched with dummy content, and remains launched with dummy content, years later.

Of course, that was a long time ago. Where does this put me now? Overall, pretty satisfied with my career. I’ve moved on to places that recognize the need for quality work, and ownership of the design process by those who have been hired for that task: designers. It’s been quite a while since I’ve put out work I was dissatisfied with. I feel proud as a designer, and I never want to slip back into pushing our subpar work again. I am responsible for the work I put out into the world.

Design is a Job isn’t just a book about the design industry. It’s validation for all those times I fought for the integrity of my work. It’s a mentor. It should be every designer’s bible.

If anything, read it for the lady bengal tigers. See? It’s already piqued your interest.